Nowadays, WhatsApp has become one of the communication platforms since it was created in 2009. But it is not only a powerful communication tool on a personal level, but there are many companies and sectors that use this app in their communication tasks.
One of these sectors is health, and WhatsApp has revolutionized medical consultations by facilitating communication and the exchange of information in medicine, just as it does in other areas. In fact, more and more health professionals are using this messaging app in their work environment with some of the following objectives:
- Facilitate communication with the patient: WhatsApp can help resolve specific questions remotely or even monitor a patient. Above all, it is an ideal option for those who live in rural areas or have difficulties to go to the consultation.
- Sharing information with other professionals: In health, dialogue with other professionals is something constant, either to ask for a second opinion on a diagnosis or treatment or to ask regarding the result of a test.
- Learn: Although the main objective of this app is to send and receive messages, another possibility is to create groups with other professionals, something that can become real discussion forums for current medical issues.
Advantages of WhatsApp in health
Its low cost and ease of use are two of the main characteristics of WhatsApp. This is at a general level but in the medical sector it has the following advantages:
- Ease of communication with other professionals streamlines and promotes inter-departmental collaboration.
- It allows get an immediate responseregardless of how far away your interlocutor is and without wasting your time locating him.
- You can use this app to answer very basic questions as this will avoid unnecessary scrolling and reduce query congestion.
drawbacks
Although WhatsApp has the advantages that we have mentioned, it is also true that this app has some drawbacks that mean that, until they are solved, its use is discouraged. Among these drawbacks, the following stand out:
- Can deteriorate the relationship between doctor and patient. This is because the dialogue through WhatsApp is usually shorter, with less detail and more impersonal.
- If you do not manage to set the appropriate limits, you can reach experience constant interruptions that will make it difficult for you to correctly carry out your face-to-face work in consultation.
- Diagnosis via WhatsApp can cause major medical errors that would be avoided in the face-to-face consultation.
- Inquiries made through WhatsApp they lack traceability and the results or impressions are not dumped into the clinical history, something that prevents the correct follow-up of the patients.
- Although the biggest drawback of using WhatsApp in the health sector is the possible violation of the patient privacy. Although the messages sent through WhatsApp are encrypted (that is, only the sender and the receiver can see them), the information is stored on the mobile, so that anyone who has access to your device can see the content.
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